How SIRESP (didn’t) work in Pedrógão Grande
António Costa’s answers to questions from the CDS make it possible to draw up a timeline of how the State’s emergency communications system worked on the ground. Find out what failed.
SIRESP, Portugal’s controversial Integrated System of Emergency and Security Networks, hit the headlines after failures were reported in its operation during the fight against the Pedrógão Grande fire. Until now, it had been taken as certain that there were communication difficulties, but what actually happened on the ground was not known.
On Thursday a document was released with Prime Minister António Costa’s answers to a set of questions put by the CDS-PP. Based on that document, ECO has put together a timeline of what happened in Pedrógão Grande: what failed and what did not, the decisions that were taken and the key moments of the most tragic fire in Portugal’s modern history.
AI translation from the Portuguese. First published in ECO on 6 July 2017.